Knowledge Management (KM) is the process of capturing, organizing, and storing information and experiences of workers and groups within an organization and making it available to others. By collecting those artifacts in a central or distributed electronic environment , KM aims to help a company gain competitive advantage. 

Several factors have contributed to the growth of and interest in KM. We identify eight of them: 

• Accelerating pace of change 
• Staff attrition (especially that resulting from years of downsizing and reengineering) 
• Growth in organizational scope
• Geographic dispersion associated with globalization of markets
• Global integration 
• Increase in networked organizations
• Growing knowledge-intensity of goods and services
• Revolution in information technology 

Knowledge Management and Information Management

There is a difference between information and knowledge management. Information and information management focus on the collection, structuring and processing of data. Reliable and timely data is important for effective knowledge management, but it is only one part of the picture. Knowledge management may be derived from information, but it also implies an analysis of the information and data and an understanding of that analysis. It also enables the application of that understanding in future practise. This last point is critical. It is not enough for an organization to simply "have knowledge"; it must be able to harness and apply that knowledge to bring better results.